As a company grows and acquires or produces a plurality of lines of business, it becomes desirable to integrate the operations of those lines of business so that information can be shared and utilized more efficiently. If a company has lines of business in, for example, mortgage production and credit cards, it is advantageous for this company to be able to recognize its own credit card customer who may also now be interested in a mortgage.
The term “line of business” is intended to also include, optionally, portions of a company which may not be a core line of business but which has maintained a database of information separate from other portions of the company and the lines of business. This includes, for example, legal, administrative and other supervisory portions of the company.
Some prior art techniques for integrating portions of a company include simple requirements that the company use the same operating system on its computers or the same word-processing program throughout. Other integration techniques relate to the technology shared across the company. However, such minimal integration techniques, while allowing the company to operate somewhat more efficiently, do not necessarily allow the company to share information from one line of business to another. In some cases, lines of business and their respective databases become so segregated that each line of business almost becomes a company by itself and thereby gives the impression to customers that a plurality of companies exist—instead of a single company with a plurality of lines of business. For example, a customer may change his address with one line of business and expect that his address will be changed with all other lines of business within the same company (e.g. a change at JPMorganChase automotive should produce a change in JPMorganChase mortgage). Such conveniences, however, do not always occur. Additionally, if a customer indicates certain preferences to one line of business (e.g. best contact information), that information should be shared among all other lines of business. Again, this does not always occur.
One problem is that lines of business often provide such differing services that eventually each line of business develops its own language or definitions for certain terms. For example, the term “prospect” in one line of business may mean someone who the company has contacted, whereas the same term in another line of business may mean someone that the company has never contacted but would like to contact.
There are frequently different types of customer management technologies across lines of business even for similar business functions. Data for customers is stored in a plurality of locations for a plurality of lines of business. However, this data is typically not shared among the lines of business.
Data for each line of business is typically specific for the line of business and few software applications are common across lines of business. Some information is shared while other information is not. Multiple customer information profiles exist across lines of business thereby making it difficult to get a single view of customer profiles and behavior. Obtaining cross line of business information is also difficult because of poor data quality enforcement, different systems, and different hardware, database applications.
An example of a prior art customer information management system exhibiting some of the above discussed problems is shown in FIG. 1. In customer information management system 50, a customer 70 communicates through channels 52 to a company 68. Channels 52 may include, for example, an automated teller machine, 54, phone 56, internet 58, a branch 62 of company 68 or through other means 60. Customer 70 may seek to access or do business with one of a plurality of lines of business 86, 88, 90, 92 or 94. These lines of business may classify data in different formats in that, for example, similar terms may have different meanings or different fields may store similar data. Customer 70 communicates through one of the channels 52 and the communication is conveyed through a messaging bus 64 to the applicable line of business. Examples of lines of business include credit card services, mortgage services, automobile loans, etc. Each line of business includes an associated database 96, 98, 100, 102, 104. As customer 70 deals with company 68 and a particular line of business, information about the customer himself and about his transactions are stored in the applicable database 96, 98, 100, 102, 104. Some common data may be stored in an information warehouse 122. Such common data is only scant details about customers and is usually weeks old before it can be compiled and processed. An administrative portion 82 of company 68 also compiles information about customer 70 in a database 84. The term “line of business” will therefore include administrative portion 82 as discussed above.
For example, customer 70 may have a credit card through line of business 86. Over time, customer 70 will have many communications with line of business 86 and information about customer 70 and his account will be stored in database 96. Line of business 88 may offer mortgages and it would be useful for it to have information about customer 70 so that customer 70 could be contacted regarding mortgage information. Similarly, customer 70 may have an automobile loan through line of business 90. If customer 70 contacts line of business 86 and indicates that his address has changed, it would be desirable if line of business 90 is advised of this change. The customer may only be aware of the existence of company 68 and not interested in contacting all lines of business regarding his change of address.
Historically, databases 96, 98, 100, 102, 104 and 84 maintained by the separate lines of business 86-94 and 82 have been designed very differently or at least have been designed without regard to each other. The fields in each of these databases are not necessarily the same. A field for a social security number, for example, may be very important for one line of business and may have its own designated field; whereas the use for a social security number in another line of business may have evolved and may be merely entered in an extra auxiliary field. Even terms used in the databases may mean different things. The example discussed above regarding the term “Prospect” illustrates some of the confusion which may arise.
The different structuring of databases 96, 98, 100, 102, 104 and 84 makes it very difficult for lines of business 86, 88, 90, 92, 94 and 82 to communicate with each other and share information.
Additionally, information about customer 70 (or about a plurality of customers) which may be gleaned across databases 96, 98, 100, 102, 104 and 84 is not available because it is very difficult to gather information from all of these databases due to the problems discussed above. Even administrative portions 82 of company 68 which customer 70 may not have direct contact with (such as, for example, legal, research and development, etc.) may have to populate their databases 84 independently of databases 96, 98, 100, 102 and 104 because of this inability to share information and, conversely, other lines of business 86, 88, 90, 92, 94 cannot easily benefit from this information.
As indicated above, similar information may be stored in different fields or similar terms may have different meanings across lines of business. Although desirable, it is generally difficult to get lines of business to agree on terminology which can be used across the lines of business. As these lines of business have difficulty even agreeing on terminology, it is very difficult to revamp each database individually so that it conforms to a standard throughout company 68.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a system and method which can integrate the information available across lines of business so as to enhance the operation and communication in a company. Such a system should provide a centralized database including general information about customers acquired across lines of business and allow lines of business to benefit from data stored in other lines of business.